Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is meme created by Marcia from The Printed Page. Marcia says,"Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists." Mailbox Monday is on tour and this months hostess is the delightful Avis of She Reads and Reads. Thank you Avis for hosting this month!

I received three books in my mailbox this past week. Two were purchases and one came for review. The book summaries are borrowed from Goodreads.



The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship by Andrea Israel & Nancy Garfinkel

Loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind. These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a "novel cookbook" that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than 80 delicious recipes.

Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic—and surprisingly ambitious— struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.

In childhood, "LillyPad" and "ValPal" form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets—and recipes, from Lilly's "Lovelorn Lasagna" to Valerie's "Forgiveness Tapenade." Readers can cook along as the friends travel through time facing the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.

The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val's bond through the decades, regardless of what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart . . . until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

Now, years later, while trying to recapture the trust they've lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more—only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them ever closer?

I received this book for review from Harper Collins. I believe it came for review as a win from Librarything Early Reviewers. I won a copy back in December and never received it. I think this might be it. No matter what I am thrilled to receive it as I think it sounds like a great read!



Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller


In today's world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis ...more In today's world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls.

We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.

I bought this to read as part of a readalong and study. I'm very excited to get started on it.



Between Friends by Kristy Kiernan

A provocative new novel about birth, death, and the stuff in between, from the award-winning author of Catching Genius.
Thanks to modern reproductive technology - and the gift of her friend Cora's eggs - Ali Gutierrez is the mother of a fourteen-year-old daughter.
Now, yearning for a second child, Ali asks Cora's permission to use another of the frozen embryos that have been stored away in anticipation of this decision. But Cora has a secret that could not only change Ali's plans for the future, but tear apart her life right now.

Another purchase(I was really bad this week) from my wish list I found while browsing Amazon.

What wonderful books made their way into your home?